I am a chef through and through. Everything I do - whether it is cooking for kids in Harlem or cooking in a fine dining establishment - all my days are consumed by food.

You have to balance, but you can be aggressive as a chef. It benefits the food. You have to be passionate. You can't be angry cooking.

I'm engaged in food on so many levels, and I love that. So my work, my craft, is around food, and writing is one aspect of it; communicating a narrative, cooking online is one aspect of it; solving the food chasm that we have in Harlem and finding a farmers market is another one, and all of them are equally exciting for me.

To become a good cook is to know yourself, and I, at this point, know myself. I know myself, and I know the cook I want to be and the cook I am striving to be.

Michelin Star? I’d rather chew a French rubber tyre.

I'm lucky to live in New York, a city that offers so many options for lunch. I can pick up dumplings from a Midtown food truck, grab empanadas by the dozen in Spanish Harlem or get a fantastic bowl of ramen in the East Village.